Making a planetary Dall-Kirkham telescope

[Stefan Buda]

Last night I had a quick imaging session with the new primary mirror and focuser.
The seeing was very mediocre but the high altitude of the Moon helped compensate for that.
I must point out that I made no attempt to re-collimate the scope after I swapped out the primary and the focuser.
The attached image shows Archimedes crater, bottom right, and also, on the middle left, Hadley Rille, the location of Apollo 15 landing site.
I used 500 frames from a 2400 frame capture with an ASI290 and red filter.

[Leo.G (Leo)]

WOW, you'd have to be happy with those results Stefan.

[Tinderboxsky (Steve)]

Very, very promising first light. Look forward to seeing results with the scope fully dialled in and excellent seeing.

[Stefan Buda]

Originally Posted by Leo.G

WOW, you'd have to be happy with those results Stefan.

Thanks Leo,
Yes, I'm happy about the image but I'm even happier about how user friendly and stable the whole instrument is. I think I'll have difficulty letting it go after I finished testing it.

Originally Posted by Tinderboxsky

Very, very promising first light. Look forward to seeing results with the scope fully dialled in and excellent seeing.

Thanks Steve, but I can already tell from this image that the scope is very close to its theoretical limit, as far as resolution is concerned. I will test it on bright stars to check for flares and eventually on planets where the ability to resolve low contrast is very important.

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Stefan a really dumb question (I'm full of them), do you make these units to order?
In asking that I could not afford one if I wanted one I'm just curious whether you make custom units and sell them on when completed (how you could let go of workmanship like that is beyond me as a personal achievement) or do you just come up with an idea, see it to the end, check, double check, test images and sell them on to any interested party?
Regardless of how you do it that is an amazing result from the grinding and polishing the glass (or was that your all sky dome you made?).
You are a master!

[Stefan Buda]

Leo,
Here's a little blurb that should answer your questions: https://beamtech.com.au/about/

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Thanks Stefan!


Do you do the anodising in house or send it out to a third party company?
It's a beautiful finish if you do it in house.

I'm very interested in laser cutting, I have a plasma cutter I have to rig up to be CNC but I'd love to go laser instead, I just don't have the room or money but hey, dreams are free or so my sister says.
I have a Co2 thing I'm making up as a laser cutter for plastics, more to burn indentations in clear acrylic sheeting (perspex) to make light boards for some of my canvas printed images, light coming out only where I want it to light up certain parts of the image at a set intensity depending on the lighting I want in the different places (led strips along the sides, I can't remember what the things are called). Now I really only need 3 NEMA 23 stepper motors to build my rig. I still need cooling for the Co2 laser head and may strip down my portable air-con for that (I gave one away).


I realised yesterday I can still weld nicely when I can see the weld pool if I put 2 pairs of reading glasses on and that was with an arc welder, I have more to do today while it's not raining.